No grass, no shoes, pure pleasure: Football in rural Africa

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Photos:No grass, no shoes, pure pleasure: Football in rural Africa

My ball – In some parts of rural Africa, handmade balls like this one are often made from old rice bags and tied together with fresh tree bark. Condoms are often used too -- they have a life span of three days when inflated to make a football. This picture was taken outside Pipeline FC, Nhambonda, Mozambique.

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Photos:No grass, no shoes, pure pleasure: Football in rural Africa

Bollards for goalposts – A makeshift goal is set up in Jamestown, Accra, Ghana. Photographer Jessica Hilltout captured several such scenes during her trip around Africa.

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Photos:No grass, no shoes, pure pleasure: Football in rural Africa

Different ball game – Footballs are made from anything from clothes to old bags. Often their lifespan is short despite being handled as precious possessions.

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Photos:No grass, no shoes, pure pleasure: Football in rural Africa

Make believe – In Nhambonda, Mozambique, this boy had no ball to pose with for the photo so he created an invisible one.

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Photos:No grass, no shoes, pure pleasure: Football in rural Africa

Grasping hope – Soale proudly holds the only ball in the village of Kpenjipei, Ghana. This ball was stitched up numerous times and had to be re-inflated during matches. Hilltout said: "This ball was hanging onto life for the sake of a whole village. It almost started to have human qualities."

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Photos:No grass, no shoes, pure pleasure: Football in rural Africa

Handiwork – A player wears a hand-stitched Vento Inha FC shirt, in Pacasse, Mozambique, with the name of former Brazil international Ronaldinho emblazoned across the back.

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Photos:No grass, no shoes, pure pleasure: Football in rural Africa

Field of dreams? – In Pacasse, Mozambique, the football players have to contend with pitch invaders.

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Photos:No grass, no shoes, pure pleasure: Football in rural Africa

The tired ball – "Am I kicked, beaten, used, crushed and trampled? Or am I strong, resilient, determined, unbeaten, proud?"I am both. I am proof that with so little we can do so much. I am proof that simple pleasures are enduring."I am a ball. I am an African ball."

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Photos:No grass, no shoes, pure pleasure: Football in rural Africa

Cup holders – This trophy was won by Etoile Brillante d'Eburnie, a team in Abidjan, Ivory Coast. Hilltout said: "I think this must be one of the most beautiful football trophies I have ever seen."

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Photos:No grass, no shoes, pure pleasure: Football in rural Africa

Team with no name – Chicome's team has no name. It sometimes plays matches against neighboring villages. They leave for three days -- traveling 25 kilometers on foot each day to get to the match before walking back again.

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Story highlights

Photographer Jessica Hilltout traveled across Africa capturing role of football in society

Hilltout, not a sports fan, believes football is integral to people's happiness

She drove across the continent visiting whole raft of countries

Hilltout has set up a fund to help bring sports equipment to Ghana

A boy takes a condom.

He inflates it slowly, each breath meticulously measured as the creation begins to take shape.

He takes some plastic and carefully wraps it around the condom, ensuring it can't be punctured before using pieces of shredded tire and an old rope to tie around the oddly shaped sphere.

This is football -- rural African style.

No grass, no shoes, just a machete knife on hand to chisel out the thorns which get stuck in the players' feet.

Welcome to Chicome -- a small village in Mozambique, located 150 kilometers off the beaten track and an eight-hour drive through the bush.

In her father's Volkswagen Beetle, Hilltout traveled across Africa, documenting in each and every shot just how crucial football is to the survival of those battling against the odds.

"It wasn't easy at the beginning. I was sitting in my tent, crying, why am I doing this?" she recalled.

"I hated football. It's such a male world, then there is a little white woman, and everyone was looking at me.

"With time on the terrain I learned that the best thing for me was to settle in an area where I felt a good vibe. I wanted to use my senses, feel, talk to people, make friends, see the fields and spend time with people to explain the project and gain their trust.

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"People are suspicious because white people take photos and make money off the back of it. I had to break that. I think that people saw I was putting love into my log books they saw it wasn't a commercial project.

"They saw that when I was stopping to write their names down and put some memorable quotes in that there was more to it."

Hilltout is no stranger to Africa. Her tour of Madagascar in 2007 whetted the appetite for something which delved deeper into the everyday lives of those living across such a vast and enriching continent.

It was while spending Christmas with her father in South Africa five years ago that the idea of a football project was born.

"I love Africa and my father loves football. He did the design of the book and I took the pictures and the traveling," she said.

"I'm not a football fan at all. I did watch the World Cup, but I'm really not a big fan.

"During my travels through Africa I had often seen handmade balls which I thought were beautiful and symbolic of so much. But I thought there was something wonderful about showing what life is like in Africa through football.

"I wanted to do a study of football in its purest sense, without all the corporate sponsors, television and stuff which goes with it.

"I wanted to show people playing just for the pure pleasure."

Hilltout spent a total of nine months traveling throughout Africa, taking in Lesotho, Malawi and South Africa on her first trip before visiting Ghana, Ivory Coast, Burkina Faso, Niger, Togo and Benin.

"Every time I stopped somewhere, I found someone who could speak the dialect and English or French and they would be my link to the population. I wanted to have fun," she said.

The project has sparked reaction from across the globe with hundreds of people donating both new and old equipment, while Adidas has also contributed.

"It has gone beyond all expectations," she said.

"I was always attracted to the world of image. I assisted photographers to make sure I actually wanted to do it. I did a trip in a Land Rover from Brussels to Mongolia and then up to Africa when I was younger.

"It really formed my way of seeing the world. I wanted to see the imperfect, the banal and all the simple things in life which we sometimes forget about.

"For anyone, whatever their passions is, when you give a project everything you've got and push yourself that bit further, there's always some kind of magic that happens."